No Annette
by JemilyDay
Summary: Soda falls in love again. Just a short story at the moment. Should I continue? Please R & R!


A figure emerged through the mist. I had had this dream a million times before. Any minute now, I'll be waking up, I reluctantly thought to myself. The steam from the train began to clear and I squinted. It was him. I stopped, and he stopped too. It was almost as if time stood still…

It was just another ordinary day and me and a bunch of the girls were hanging out at the DX gas station after school. I, along with about six of my friends, had the hugest crush on Sodapop Curtis, (who was about seventeen at the time) and one of the dreamiest looking boys I had ever laid eyes on.

"Talk to him, Nell." One of my friends hissed and nudged me forward. I looked behind me, where another of my friends, Annette, nodded in encouragement. We all had bets going on who could get a date with him first. I doubted very much I could get him to ask me out if Annette couldn't. Annette sure was the prettiest girl I knew. I mean, I'm okay looking and all but…no Annette. I smoothed my long brown hair, which will never curl prettily no matter how hard I try, checked that the hemline on my second-hand dress was straight and sauntered casually forward.

"Hey, Soda!" I said brightly. Shoot, I probably sound like such an airhead. Maybe I am one, I thought sadly.

He didn't look up from the car he was working on. Soda used to be the most friendly and flirty guy I had heard of. But nowadays…

"Hey…uh..."

"Nell." I put in helpfully.

He clicked his tongue between his teeth.

"That's the one."

He didn't say anything else. Ah, well, I thought. There's a guy who sits next to me in History who's actually pretty cute. I shrugged and turned to leave, and in doing so I tripped over some kind of mechanical object and fell flat on my face, knocking my head on the hard concrete ground.

I don't remember exactly what happened next, having knocked myself out and all- all I know is that I opened my eyes and saw a bright pair of blue ones staring back at me. Soda smiled.

"You took a bit of a tumble there, Miss." He said

You could tell he was trying to keep the amusement in his voice to a minimum, but wasn't succeeding very well.

"It's okay. You can laugh."

And boy, did he.

"I'm glad you find my total humiliation so amusing." I grumbled with a smile. I was torn. My head hurt, but it must have been pretty funny to watch.

"Here. Let me." He took me gently by the upper arms and set me on my feet. I looked over his shoulder and could see a few girls giggling foolishly and a few others shooting me jealous looks.

"Shoot." Said Soda suddenly. "You're bleeding."

"I am?" I put a hand to the top of my head, and when I pulled my fingers away, sure enough, they were covered in blood.

"Here." Said Soda. He took off his blue DX shirt and put it to my head.

"Glory- that's gonna stain, stupid."

"A thanks would have done."

I smiled- then suddenly went red. I became very aware that he wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Uh…uhm…" I started

"Yeah?" Soda prompted.

"I have to go eat my homework?"

He laughed but couldn't help shooting me a funny look.

"Eat dinner. Do homework." I said quickly.

I turned to leave, then turned back and handed him the shirt.

As I walked off, cursing furiously under my breath, he chuckled and shook his head, and began to whistle as he went back to working on the car.

I didn't want to go back there. I really didn't, but the girls talked me into it. The girls can talk me into anything when they put their mind to it.

So there I was, following the crowd once again, like some lost kind of sheep. Hell, they didn't care if I had been totally humiliated the last time – they just wanted to watch us interacting, like I was an animal in the zoo or something.

The minute the crowd of us walked over to where Soda and a few other guys were standing around at the gas pump at the DX, he looked up and his eyes found me straight away. An unmistakable smirk flashed across his lips.

Great, I thought grimly to myself.

There were two boys standing next to Soda. One had his shirt unbuttoned and was concentrating hard on combing some grease through his hair. This was Steve. My friend Lydia had had, let's just say, a drunken encounter with him.

I hadn't seen the other boy before. He looked about fifteen, a couple of years younger than me and was almost as handsome as Sodapop. He must be his younger brother, I realised.

Soda stopped staring at me for a second when the younger boy nudged him in the ribs, hard.

"Jeez, Pony. That hurt." He said as he rubbed his side.

"Sorry but I was talking to you and you just spaced out."

Soda laughed.

"Now you know how I feel, huh?"

The boy called Pony smiled grudgingly.

"I'm going home. See y'all later."

As Steve waved goodbye to Pony, Soda walked towards me and indicated with his head to come a little way out of earshot of the others.

"A little bit of salt should do it." I informed him once we had stopped walking and were facing each other.

"What?" he said confusedly.

I sighed.

"You were going to ask me how to get the bloodstain out of your shirt right? Well…a little bit of salt should be the ticket."

He looked at me as though I was insane.

"No I wasn't going to ask you that. I was gonna ask you to come to the movies tonight."

"Huh?" He caught me totally off guard. Why would he want to go out with a girl like me? Girls like Annette would jump at the chance, who are Socs and curvy and beautiful. I was just Plain old middle-class Nell. Nell who tripped over and got her words muddled and knew how to get a stain out of a shirt.

Now he was looking at me as though fearing for my health.

"Oh…" I said. "Well sure."

He smiled and I realised I had never seen him smile like that. It was like it lit up his whole face.

Later that night he picked me up from my house. I had tried desperately to curl my hair but it was still poker straight. It least it was thick and shiny, I reminded myself. When we reached the Dingo and filed into some seats, Soda put his arm around me and some old man muttered something under his breath that sounded nastily like "Trashy Greaser." Soda let his arm fall limply to his side and looked at his feet. I realised his cheeks had gone red. I turned around in my seat.

"Yeah, old man you got a problem?"

The old man in question got up and walked away, attempting to look dignified. Soda was staring at me.

"What?" I asked after a moment.

He smiled, and then shrugged.

"Nothing." But I couldn't help noticing that he gently took my hand, and squeezed it tight.

We talked throughout the movie, probably irritating the hell out of the people sitting behind us. Soda was funny, charming and genuine, just like he used to be until a few months ago. We then moved to the back row, and lets just say we didn't talk then.

Everything was going great until we stopped for a bite to eat in the little diner at the side of the road. He paid for my coke and we sat at a booth lit by a dim light at the back. I opened my mouth, searching for something to say but Soda beat me to it.

He was looking around with a reminiscently.

"I came here with Sandy on my first date." He said with a misty look in his eyes.

I almost choked on my mouthful of coke at that. Was he really mentioning some other girl on our date?

He looked as though he was almost crying, I realised with a sick feeling.

"Uh…so what's for eating here?" I asked lightly, picking up the menu. "I'm starved…"

Soda came out of his daydream.

"Uh…"

"Ooh, that cheeseburger looks tasty." I said as a waitress on roller-skates carried one on a tray past our booth.

"Sandy hated cheeseburgers." Soda said wistfully.

I rolled my eyes. What the hell was his problem?

Soda sighed again. I folded my menu impatiently.

"If Sandy was so great, then why aren't you with her anyway?"

He scowled before answering.

"She's pregnant with someone else's child and lives in Florida now."

"Oh. I'm sorry Soda."

"Don't be sorry…Sandy always said…"

Before he could finish another sentence, I stood up fast.

"You know what Soda…I'm not Sandy and I'm not going to sit here while you wish you were with her instead of me. Get over yourself."

I said all this very loudly with a thunderous look on my face and quite a few people in the restaurant turned to look at me.

And with that, I ran the heck out of there. I could hear him running after me for a while, but I can be quite speedy when I want to be. I regretted saying half of those things to him. Sure, it was rude of him to bring up some ex-girlfriend on his date with me, but maybe he was hurting.

I couldn't see him again now.

It was about three days later, and I had so far avoided bumping into Sodapop. Unfortunately, I had to walk past the gas station he worked at every day after school, just to get onto the main road that led to my house. So every day, I had hitched up my skirt and walked, crouched over, hidden behind the cars that were queued up. He hadn't seen me so far, though one man in a sharp looking suit had given me the funniest look. But it's all okay. I'm used to that.

So, as I was saying, on the third day I grabbed hold of my skirt and went down on all fours as I went past the DX. I was undercover behind a big beaten-up old jeep. I thought Soda was pumping a car full of gas but I guess I thought wrong.

"Nell?" A familiar voice said.

I froze and slowly turned my head round where Soda was standing looking at me as I crouched in my ridiculous position, scratching his ear, probably wondering what the heck I was doing.

Contrary to his belief, I'm sure, I am not always tripping over and crawling around and generally making a fool of myself. I'm actually a good track runner and I used to always play football with my older brothers out in our front yard.

"Oh hi Soda!" I said in a big, fake voice, which I'm sure he saw right through immediately. "I was just…"

He grinned at me and gave me a sceptical look, before wiping his hand on his jeans and helping me up.

I smoothed down my hair and sniffed, attempting to look a little more dignified.

"Can you come in the back room for a minute?" he asked me.

"Uh…I was just…sure." I finished somewhat lamely.

I picked up the French grammar book that I had been holding in my hand, that I had dropped on the ground at some point and followed him.

"Look." Soda said suddenly as we reached a secluded storage room that was meant to be for employees only. "I haven't felt this way about someone in a long time and I know I've probably screwed it up but I just had to let you know that."

I blinked. It was the first time a boy had ever said anything like that to me and he wasn't just any boy either. He was Sodapop Curtis…the boy of my dreams. Shoot, the boy of every girl's dreams. But then was when I realised. He wasn't some sort of idol. We all had him up on this pedestal, but he was just a boy. A boy who was fun and loving but who made mistakes, just like any other boy.

"I…uhm…that's…"

"You see? I love the way you get all flustered and can't even get out a simple sentence…"

"Soda…"

"I love the way you just ramble about anything to cover up awkward silences. Shoot, Nell, I think…I think I'm falling in love with you."

I blinked yet again. I just knew any minute now I was going to faint, or barf from nerves, or just complete humiliate myself in anyway possible. Besides, he was obviously totally in love with this Sandy person. He had already proven that.

I turned to leave, but Soda grabbed my French book.

"Soda give it back."

"No."

He said it seriously, but his eyes were playful.

"Soda." I said. "Give me the book back."

"No." He repeated.

"Fine. I'll go. It's just a French book."

As I turned to leave, he grabbed my wrist so that my hair smacked me in the face. The next thing I knew, he was pressing his lips up against mine, with passion that I didn't know existed. His hands were on my waist, and my back and in my hair. It was a kiss full of frustration and I obeyed willingly to its pressure.

The French book lay forgotten on the floor, along with Soda's past and every worry that I had. At least, for this moment, everything was going to be okay.


End file.
